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PRETTY & NICE
By JOE BERNARDI
del.ico.us
reddit!
For local band Pretty & Nice, signing to Sub Pop imprint Hardly Art came as something of a shock. "Our initial reaction was skepticism," says guitarist/vocalist Jeremy Mendicino. "We tried to blow holes through [Hardly Art's proposal] for like a month."
The band, who describes their sound as "convoluted pop" and takes admitted cues from the likes of XTC and Elvis Costello, first heard from the label just a few months ago. "We started talking to the A&R guy around September; he bought one of our records one day and the next he bought the other one. We didn't know anything about who he was," says vocalist/guitarist Holden Lewis. "Eventually it came up that he was the head of A&R for Sub Pop. He told us someone would come out to see one of our shows, but I'm not even sure if anyone ever did."
The last few years have seen a steady stream of tours, and other activity for the band and their newfound status as labelmates with such artists as Arthur & Yu and Le Loup doesn't seem to have changed much—they're performing at the upcoming South by Southwest festival and are currently in the midst of recording their Hardly Art debut. The band's staying mum on the recording process, which is taking place in the band's Brighton basement: "We're finally starting to get somewhere with the recording, but we still work on it every night," says Mendicino. "The label gave us three months in the original contract. We asked for six. We're using those six." Adds Lewis: "You can quote him on that."
Looking past South by Southwest and their new album, the future seems about as open and exciting as you might expect from a band in P&N's situation. There are rumblings of eventually touring Japan and the United Kingdom (not to mention a seemingly inevitable full-scale tour of the US), plus all the other awesome, mysterious shit that probably comes along when Sub Pop is underwriting you. It's been a promising couple of months for Pretty & Nice, but they seem like they're taking it in stride. "As much as it seemed slow and casual, it happened very quickly," says Mendicino. He deadpans: "We're important."
